Loyal blog readers, I welcome you to one of the more exciting blogs from my trip to South Africa. I write to you today, not as a foreign visitor traveling about a distant land, but instead as a proud and newly-declared citizen of the Republic of South Africa. After 8 long months of waiting, Home Affairs (i.e. the government-run office headed by South Africa’s finest headless chickens) granted me citizenship, and thus welcomed me to my new homeland - a land full of pride, hope, and of course power outages every Tuesday between 2-4pm. Not only can I come and go as I please now, without having to worry about my ever-so-invalid visa giving me issues, I also can vote (choosing between politicians that would give Kwame Kilpatrick a run for his money in a how-corrupt-can-you-possibly-be type election) as well as join the army (in case the sudden urge to go to war with a distant tribal village ever pops up). Most importantly however, I can finally obtain a true, well-paying (well not really), job.
With a flight home less than four months away (Aug 19th to be precise), and a home in Royal Oak struggling to maintain a value above $100 (arsonists feel free to have your way with it), I decided to focus my efforts on acquiring a job, in order to help fund my remaining months here in Cape Town. With plenty of “real” jobs in Cape Town, which would be amazing references and resume-fillers for future opportunities back home, I instead opted for a more, 19-year-old-living-with-their-parents-in-the-basement type job, as to stick with the theme of my year away: “Ahhh… f*ck it”
Thus, starting Monday, I will officially be working as a ThundaCat for www.thunda.com – An online website that provides social photography throughout all of South Africa. 2-3 nights a week, I will travel from bar to bar, club to club, taking almost 500 pictures per night of patrons in their finest states of drunkenness. From Cape Town’s elite females, revealing their pre-rehearsed Blue Steel-esque poses to utter perfection (slight body turn, head tilted somewhat downwards, pouty lips, and of course eyes that only say “I… am… so… Hot”) to those at the local dive bar, struggling their best to keep their drunken eyes open long enough for one semi-sober shot. Three hours later, with approximately $20 more in my pocket (hello early retirement!), I shed my uniform (picture to be posted next blog), and join the party for the evening.
Although my official employment commences tonight, my era of unofficial employment came to an end on a relatively interesting note last week. After having the distinct pleasure of being a website developer, assistant plumber, newspaper photographer, home mover/decorator and literary market researcher, I spent my final three days of unofficial employment as the equivalent of the driver in Driving Miss Daisy. Although instead of Miss Daisy, I had the distinct opportunity to drive around Raymond – A 60-something year old, partially blind, music rep from Jo’Burg. Lacking the ability to see anything outside his direct line-of-sight, I drove Raymond around from mall to mall, store to store, lugging around his box of eccentric and “niche” music.
When not driving Raymond around in my ever-so-reliable Green Monster, I was waiting for him during meetings, either constantly re-parking the car (as I somehow managed to always park on the opposite end of the mall), or practicing my avid mall-walking skills (visiting almost 500 stores in a period of 3 days). And although Raymond was quite nice, he did have his “elderly” moments, especially when yelling at me “you bloody kids think you know everything now-a-days!" (this of course after I attempted to convince Raymond that we couldn't drive down the wrong-way one-way road that led into a jam-packed pedestrian-only mall). Oh, and then of course "I should shove my foot right up your ass" (this after I accidentally walked in/out of Raymond's line-of-sight, almost tripping him if I had only been 5 feet closer... ). I wonder how Raymond a poor old Jay would get along?
Onto the pics (sorry, not too many this week, and most are quite random):
 | No caption necessary |
 | Look who popped into town for a few days!! |
 | I'll give you one guess what the most popular car in South Africa is... |
 | A mall in Germany -- anyone recognize where the pictures came from?? (yeah, I'm pretty much famous now) |
 | Tina Turner/RuPaul performer |
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